Finding Creativity

At the end of last year, my roommate and I took a ton of Buzzfeed quizzes to see if we would get married in 2016, what hit song matched our 2015, what we should do to make our lives better in 2016. Mostly, they were silly quizzes with sillier answers. Apparently I’m going to get married! Start lining up, fellas, we only have 10 months left for courting!

One that did stick with me, though, was about finding a creative outlet, or doing something creative, or sticking to being creative, or SOMETHING. Moral of the story: Do creative stuff. More than one quiz had this answer.

I’ve been working on writing over here more often (You will not BELIEVE how many drafts I have waiting to be completed). And taking photos of things when I think they’re pretty (By that I mean, Instagram more often). And doing cool things with newspaper design when I have the opportunity (Did you know I host my portfolio here? I add pretty pages every time I do one I like). I’m making progress.

* * *

A year ago, my dear friend (and now roommate) and I went on a trip to see a writer we love speak at a high school. We were the only people, aside from teachers, older than 18. And we (mostly me) giggled and squealed with delight at seeing him in the flesh, hearing his voice, watching him as he talked about the things he wrote about in his book.

Afterward, we went up to say hello. I brought a copy of his book for him to maybe, pretty please sign for me. He gave us hugs and told me he had a birthday present for me. He said he’d give it to me later — when we got to the coffeeshop.

What?

Josh Riebock! With me and Elizabeth! That look on my face is ceaseless internal screaming.

That’s right. Elizabeth, little instigator that she is, tweeted him into going out for coffee with us after his gig, but don’t tell anyone, it’s a birthday surprise, shh.

We spent the afternoon with a wonderful human. He gave me a special signed copy of his book and texted me a screen shot of the first paragraph of his next book. The last time he tweeted about it, I asked if that paragraph I have still stands. Only shadows of it remain, he said.

We talked about being creative. We talked about struggles, about depression, about working through those things and finding the light.

* * *

A note I made on my phone while he spoke was “hemorrhaging creativity.” I still think about it constantly. I don’t even know what it means. Wasting creativity? Producing so much? Drowning in it? What’s the connotation here?

Whatever it means, I must create more. That’s what this year is going to be about. I’m in a good place. I want to learn and do creative stuff. I’ve spent a quarter of a century (whoa!) building up to this, right here, right now.